The British Character. Calm when faced by adversity. Cartoon in Punch, 4 July 1934

Laidler was born on 4 July 1908 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England at 6 Osborne Avenue, Jesmond. His father, George Laidler, owner of a painting and decorating business, died when Laidler was 13 and his mother, Kathleen, eventually the family moved south, finally settling in Jordans in Buckinghamshire. Laidler had always hoped to become a cartoonist but, to ensure an income that would adequately support himself and his widowed mother, he enrolled at the London School of Architecture in 1926. After being diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1932, he was unable to continue with an office-based career and started to concentrate on his cartoons. From 1930-1936 he published a weekly strip The Twiffs, in the magazine Woman's Pictorial. In August 1932 he had his first acceptance from Punch; by 1937 he was so popular that the editor, EV Knox, is understood to have made an almost unprecedented 'gentlemen's' agreement' with him to take all his drawings if Laidler would undertake to draw only for Punch - possibly a bid to make sure he was not poached by Graham Greene's new magazine Night and Day.

Under the name ‘Pont’ (derived from a nickname – Pontifex Maximus – he acquired during a visit to Rome),[1] Laidler became one of the most original talents in the history of Punch and his work continues to inspire cartoonists to this day. He is perhaps most famous for his series on the ‘British Character’. This was published as a book in 1938. Another book The British Carry On (1940) portrayed the atmosphere of the phoney war. A famous example shows a placid scene in a country pub, where the radio is tuned to the German propaganda station: 'Meanwhile, in Britain, the entire population, faced by the threat of an invasion, has been flung into a state of complete panic.’ 'At Home', and 'Popular Misconceptions' were also successful series, but by the end of his brief career he was also developing a striking new approach, moving away from the detailed, large drawings to economical, one or two figure sketches with pithy captions.

Laidler was tall, good-looking and regarded by all with affection. He completed four hundred cartoons in his brief career, enough to furnish the material for five books. Bernard Hollowood, fellow cartoonist and later editor of Punch wrote a biographical account of his life and work in his book Pont (1969). A further, as yet unpublished, biography was written by Laidler's cousin, Ann Glendenning McMullan MBE.

1.
Newcastle upon Tyne
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Newcastle is the most populous city in the North East and forms the core of the Tyneside conurbation, the eighth most populous urban area in the United Kingdom. Newcastle is a member of the English Core Cities Group and is a member of the Eurocities network of European cities. Newcastle was part of the county of Northumberland until 1400, when it became a county of itself, the regional nickname and dialect for people from Newcastle and the surrounding area is Geordie. Newcastle also houses Newcastle University, a member of the Russell Group, the city developed around the Roman settlement Pons Aelius and was named after the castle built in 1080 by Robert Curthose, William the Conquerors eldest son. The city grew as an important centre for the trade in the 14th century. The port developed in the 16th century and, along with the lower down the River Tyne, was amongst the worlds largest shipbuilding and ship-repairing centres. Newcastles economy includes corporate headquarters, learning, digital technology, retail, tourism and cultural centres, among its icons are Newcastle United football club and the Tyne Bridge. Since 1981 the city has hosted the Great North Run, a marathon which attracts over 57,000 runners each year. The first recorded settlement in what is now Newcastle was Pons Aelius and it was given the family name of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, who founded it in the 2nd century AD. This rare honour suggests Hadrian may have visited the site and instituted the bridge on his tour of Britain, Pons Aelius population at this period was estimated at 2,000. Fragments of Hadrians Wall are visible in parts of Newcastle, particularly along the West Road, the course of the Roman Wall can be traced eastwards to the Segedunum Roman fort in Wallsend—the walls end—and to the supply fort Arbeia in South Shields. After the Roman departure from Britain, completed in 410, Newcastle became part of the powerful Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, conflicts with the Danes in 876 left the river Tyne and its settlements in ruin. After the conflicts with the Danes, and following the 1088 rebellion against the Normans, Monkchester was all, because of its strategic position, Robert Curthose, son of William the Conqueror, erected a wooden castle there in the year 1080. The town was known as Novum Castellum or New Castle. The wooden structure was replaced by a castle in 1087. The castle was again in 1172 during the reign of Henry II. Much of the keep which can be seen in the city dates from this period. Throughout the Middle Ages, Newcastle was Englands northern fortress, incorporated first by Henry II, the city had a new charter granted by Elizabeth in 1589

2.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years

3.
Buckinghamshire
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Development in this region is restricted by the Metropolitan Green Belt. Other large settlements include the county town of Aylesbury, Marlow in the south near the Thames and Princes Risborough in the west near Oxford. Some areas without rail links to London, such as around the old county town of Buckingham. The largest town is Milton Keynes in the northeast, which with the area is administered as a unitary authority separately to the rest of Buckinghamshire. The remainder of the county is administered by Buckinghamshire County Council as a non-metropolitan county, in national elections, Buckinghamshire is considered a reliable supporter of the Conservative Party. A large part of the Chiltern Hills, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, runs through the south of the county and attracts many walkers, in this area older buildings are often made from local flint and red brick. Chequers, an estate owned by the government, is the country retreat of the incumbent Prime Minister. To the north of the county lies rolling countryside in the Vale of Aylesbury, the Thames forms part of the county’s southwestern boundary. Notable service amenities in the county are Pinewood Film Studios, Dorney rowing lake, many national companies have offices in Milton Keynes. Heavy industry and quarrying is limited, with agriculture predominating after service industries, the name Buckinghamshire is Anglo-Saxon in origin and means The district of Buccas home. Buccas home refers to Buckingham in the north of the county, the county has been so named since about the 12th century, however, the county has existed since it was a subdivision of the kingdom of Mercia. Historically, the biggest change to the county came in the 19th century, Buckinghamshire is a popular home for London commuters, leading to greater local affluence, however, some pockets of relative deprivation remain. As a result, most county institutions are now based in the south of the county or Milton Keynes, the county can be split into two sections geographically. The county includes parts of two of the four longest rivers in England, the River Thames forms the southern boundary with Berkshire, which has crept over the border at Eton and Slough so that the river is no longer the sole boundary between the two counties. The River Great Ouse rises just outside the county in Northamptonshire and flows east through Buckingham, Milton Keynes, the main branch of the Grand Union Canal passes through the county as do its arms to Slough, Aylesbury, Wendover and Buckingham. The canal has been incorporated into the landscaping of Milton Keynes, the southern part of the county is dominated by the Chiltern Hills. The two highest points in Buckinghamshire are Haddington Hill in Wendover Woods at 267 metres above sea level, quarrying has taken place for chalk, clay for brickmaking and gravel and sand in the river valleys. Flint, also extracted from quarries, was used to build older local buildings

4.
Jordans, Buckinghamshire
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Jordans is a village located in Chalfont St Giles parish in Buckinghamshire, England. It is in the parish of Hedgerley Jordans is a notable centre for Quakerism. The village is the place of William Penn, founder of the Province of Pennsylvania. Jordans is also the location of the Mayflower Barn, made from the timbers of a ship, the village has about 245 households and 700 residents, with a nursery, primary school, youth hostel, village hall, and community shop. Of these,40 houses and cottages and 21 flats are owned and maintained by a society that manages the village. One of several suggestions for the origin of the name Jordans appears in a book on the history of the village. It has been suggested that the name comes from some connection with a family of Jourdemain. But a more probable origin is in an owner or occupant called Jordan. Jordans Farm is known as Old Jordans today, and that together with the Mayflower Barn date back to the 16th century. In the 17th century the village became a centre for Quakerism and it has one of the oldest Friends meeting houses in the country, whose cemetery is the burial place of William Penn, founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, as well as other notable Quakers. Close by is Old Jordans, originally a farmhouse, sold by the Quakers for development in March 2006, Old Jordans was used during World War I as a training centre for the Friends Ambulance Unit. Jordans Friends Meeting House was built in 1688 shortly after the Declaration of Indulgence, the meeting room retains most of its original brick, including the bare brick floor, glass, panelling and benches. It suffered a fire on 10 March 2005, when the modern extension was virtually destroyed. The interior of the meeting room escaped relatively unscathed, but suffered some water. The farms name seems to back into the late Middle Ages. Its known history begins in 1618 when Thomas Russell bought it, part of the present farmhouse was already there and Thomas Russell added to it in 1624, when he also built a substantial new main barn with timbers from a ship. Despite suppositions, it cannot be proved that the barn was built with timbers from a ship named the Mayflower that carried the Pilgrim Fathers from Plymouth to New England, however, Harris research was speculative and drawn mostly from his claims of an oral tradition. The timbers origins have not been verified, the well-preserved structure was a tourist attraction, receiving visitors each year from all over the world and particularly from the Americas but is now privately owned and not open to the public

5.
Graham Greene
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Henry Graham Greene OM CH, better known by his pen name Graham Greene, was an English novelist regarded by some as one of the great writers of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired an early in his lifetime as a major writer. He was shortlisted, in 1966 and 1967, for the Nobel Prize for Literature, through 67 years of writings, which included over 25 novels, he explored the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world, often through a Catholic perspective. Greene was born in Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire into a large, influential family that included the owners of the Greene King Brewery and he later boarded at Berkhamsted School in Hertfordshire, where his father taught and became headmaster. Unhappy at the school, he attempted several times. He went up to Balliol College, Oxford, to study history, after graduating, Greene worked first as a private tutor and then as a journalist – first on the Nottingham Journal and then as a sub-editor on The Times. He converted to Catholicism in 1926 after meeting his future wife, later in life he took to calling himself a Catholic agnostic, or even at times a Catholic atheist. He published his first novel, The Man Within, in 1929 and he supplemented his novelists income with freelance journalism, and book and film reviews. His 1937 film review of Wee Willie Winkie, commented on the sexuality of the nine-year-old star and this provoked Twentieth Century Fox to sue, prompting Greene to live in Mexico until after the trial was over. While in Mexico, Greene developed the ideas for The Power, Greene had a history of depression, which had a profound effect on his writing and personal life. In a letter to his wife, Vivien, he told her that he had a character profoundly antagonistic to ordinary life, and that unfortunately. William Golding described Greene as the chronicler of twentieth-century mans consciousness. He died in 1991, at age 86, of leukaemia, Henry Graham Greene was born in 1904 in St. John’s House, a boarding house of Berkhamsted School, Hertfordshire, where his father was housemaster. He was the fourth of six children, his brother, Hugh, became Director-General of the BBC, and his elder brother, Raymond. Charles Greene was second master at Berkhamsted School, where the headmaster was Dr Thomas Fry, another cousin was the right-wing pacifist Ben Greene, whose politics led to his internment during World War II. In his childhood, Greene spent his summers with his uncle, Sir William, in Greenes description of his childhood, he describes his learning to read there, It was at Harston I found quite suddenly I could read — the book was Dixon Brett, Detective. Graham also attended the school as a boarder, bullied and profoundly depressed, he made several suicide attempts, including, as he wrote in his autobiography, by Russian roulette and by taking aspirin before going swimming in the school pool. In 1920, aged 16, in what was a step for the time, he was sent for psychoanalysis for six months in London

6.
Punch (magazine)
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Punch, or The London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 1850s, after the 1940s, when its circulation peaked, it went into a long decline, closing in 1992. It was revived in 1996, but closed again in 2002, Punch was founded on 17 July 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells, on an initial investment of £25. It was jointly edited by Mayhew and Mark Lemon and it was subtitled The London Charivari in homage to Charles Philipons French satirical humour magazine Le Charivari. Mayhew ceased to be joint editor in 1842 and became suggestor in chief until he severed his connection in 1845, the magazine initially struggled for readers, except for an 1842 Almanack issue which shocked its creators by selling 90,000 copies. In December 1842 due to difficulties the magazine was sold to Bradbury and Evans. Bradbury and Evans capitalised on newly evolving mass printing technologies and also were the publishers for Charles Dickens, Punch humorously appropriated the term to refer to its political cartoons, and the popularity of the Punch cartoons led to the terms widespread use. The illustrator Archibald Henning designed the cover of the magazines first issues, the cover design varied in the early years, though Richard Doyle designed what became the magazines masthead in 1849. Artists who published in Punch during the 1840s and 50s included John Leech, Richard Doyle, John Tenniel and this group became known as The Punch Brotherhood, which also included Charles Dickens who joined Bradbury and Evans after leaving Chapman and Hall in 1843. Punch authors and artists contributed to another Bradbury and Evans literary magazine called Once A Week. In the 1860s and 1870s, conservative Punch faced competition from upstart liberal journal Fun, at Evanss café in London, the two journals had Round tables in competition with each other. Punch gave several phrases to the English language, including The Crystal Palace, several British humour classics were first serialised in Punch, such as the Diary of a Nobody and 1066 and All That. Towards the end of the century, the artistic roster included Harry Furniss, Linley Sambourne, Francis Carruthers Gould. Among the outstanding cartoonists of the century were Bernard Partridge, H. M. Bateman, Bernard Hollowood who also edited the magazine from 1957 to 1968, Kenneth Mahood. Circulation broke the 100,000 mark around 1910, and peaked in 1947–1948 at 175,000 to 184,000, sales declined steadily thereafter, ultimately, the magazine was forced to close in 1992 after 150 years of publication. Punch was widely emulated worldwide and popular in the colonies, however, the colonial experience, especially in India, also influenced Punch and its iconography. Tenniels Punch cartoons of the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny led to a surge in the magazines popularity, colonial India was time and again caricatured in Punch and can be seen as a significant source for producing knowledge about India. Many Punch cartoonists of the late 20th century published collections of their own, Punch magazine ceased publishing in 1992

7.
T. H. White
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Terence Hanbury Tim White was an English author best known for his sequence of Arthurian novels, The Once and Future King, first published together in 1958. One of his most memorable stories is the first of series, The Sword in the Stone. White was born in Bombay in British India, to English parents Garrick Hanbury White, a superintendent in the Indian police, Terence White had a troubled childhood, with an alcoholic father and an emotionally cold mother, and his parents separated when Terence was fourteen. White went to Cheltenham College in Gloucestershire, a school, and Queens College, Cambridge. Potts became a friend and correspondent, and White later referred to him as the great literary influence in my life. While at Queens College, White wrote a thesis on Thomas Malorys Le Morte dArthur, White then taught at Stowe School in Buckinghamshire, for four years. In 1936 he published England Have My Bones, a memoir about a year spent in England. The same year, he left Stowe School and lived in a cottage nearby, where he wrote and revert to a feral state, engaging in falconry, hunting. White also became interested in aviation, partly to conquer his fear of heights, Whites novel Earth Stopped and its sequel Gone to Ground are science fiction novels about a disaster which devastates the world. Gone to Ground contains several stories told by the survivors. White wrote to a friend that in autumn 1937, I got desperate among my books, the novel, which White described as a preface to Malory, was titled The Sword in the Stone. Published in 1938 it told the story of the boyhood of King Arthur, White was also influenced by Freudian psychology and his lifelong involvement in natural history. The Sword in the Stone was well-reviewed and was a Book of the Month Club selection in 1939, in February 1939, White moved to Doolistown in County Meath, Ireland, where he lived out the Second World War as a de facto conscientious objector. The version of The Sword in the Stone included in The Once and it is darker, and some critics prefer the earlier version. Whites indirect experience of the war had an effect on these tales of King Arthur. In 1946, White settled in Alderney, the third largest of the Channel Islands, the same year, White published Mistress Mashams Repose, a childrens book in which a young girl discovers a group of Lilliputians living near her house. Mistress Mashams Repose was influenced by John Masefields book The Midnight Folk, in 1947, he published The Elephant and the Kangaroo, in which a repetition of Noahs Flood occurs in Ireland. Written while at his cottage in the mid-1930s, it was published after its chance discovery by

8.
Fougasse (cartoonist)
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Cyril Kenneth Bird, pen name Fougasse was a British cartoonist best known for his editorship of Punch magazine and his World War II warning propaganda posters. He also designed posters for the London Underground. The son of Arthur Bird, a director, he was born in London and educated at Cheltenham College. While at Kings College he attended evening art classes at the Regent Street Polytechnic, on 16 Sep 1914 he married Mary Holden Caldwell. He was seriously injured at the Battle of Gallipoli during World War I and he first contributed to Punch in 1916, while convalescing, and also contributed to several other British newspapers and magazines, including the Graphic and Tatler. He became art editor of Punch from 1937 to 1949, then editor until 1953 and he was the only cartoonist ever to edit the magazine. During World War II, he worked unpaid for the Ministry of Information, designing humorous, for this work he was awarded the honour of Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1946. He illustrated and co-wrote several humorous books with W. D. H. McCullough. These included the very successful Aces Made Easy – or Pons asinorum in a nutshell, on the subject of bridge, in 1934. In the mid 1950s, he taught at the Christian Science Sunday School in the Sloane Square church and he died in London, aged 77. Obituary The Times 14 June 1965 page 12 col E UK National Archives, The Art of War, Fougasse Lambiek Comiclopedia, Fougasse Spartacus, Fougasse Fougasse*s Punch Illustrations in HeidICON

9.
Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network